Vandersteen 7s

02-16-10: Musicslug
I heard them at Definitive a couple weeks ago. insanely good. insanely expensive. probably not having the $ is a good thing - if you hear them you'll want them.

I was there for their "Music Matters" open house too. The Vandy 7's have a very natural tonal balance and energize the room similar to live music. I heard reference to their high price, but didn't catch what that price was.

I also heard the new Wilson Sashas there; I think the Wilsons and V-7's are excellent speakers but reflect different philosophies. The Wilsons are extremely fast and high-rez. They require the right electronics and meticulous room setup to sound right. My impression was that the Vandy's give you all the music and would be easy to live with.

Then I heard the new B&W 802D (diamond tweeter) in a third room. These rather impressed me. Tonally they sat in between the Sashas and V-7's. With the 600w Classe amps driving them they had good transparency and lots of slam and bass extension. B&W pointed out that with their economy of scale the 802D's only cost $15K but are competitive with more expensive speakers. I'd have to agree. They put out like a $25K speaker.

I also need to post over in the analog forum about this open house because the DPS turntable/tonearm tweaked, regulated, integrated, and marketed in the US by Ayre just kicks @$$. It's about a $12K rig that sounds like a $30K SME.

All this talk of Vandy 7's/ Maxx3's has gotten droooool all over my keyboard but hey that's what paper towels are for.
I was up to Weinhart Designs a couple of weeks back and the Magico 5's were playing.
I was there for cables---After a short listen I asked David to turn them down---After all; I had to go home and listen to my system.
I for one enjoy Sam banter;'cause he always has back-stories. Sort of like fruit and cream with my cereal.-- Much like reading the different opines,here.--It's all audio chat and that's good

>>>I guess Michael in fact did compare the Maxx 3 to the 7s. He mentioned the 7s were not the last word in dynamic slam and also the stage height wasn't the best in class.

That's also how I read it - Fremer implicitly compared the two. He also said that, other that 'stage height, the 7s had the best (most focused, wide, deep, delineated) soundstage and greatest resolution of any speaker he's heard.

So, it sounds like a tie until you get to the part where he says the 7s are the most enjoyable, non-fatiguing speaker he's heard. *That*, I think, is why he doesn't explicitly mention the Wilson.

the 7's are $45,000

Exactly, $45,000 vs. $15,000. If only there were some way to blindfold Fremer, switch out the 5A for the 7s, and see if he noticed the difference. Now that would tell us something.